


On Prison Island

by sxetia



Series: Heiress to the Monado [5]
Category: Xenoblade Chronicles
Genre: Gen, Roleswap, Xenoblade spoilers, fiora is the heir to the monado
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:47:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25090372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sxetia/pseuds/sxetia
Summary: It was never supposed to be like this.
Relationships: Fiora & Shulk (Xenoblade Chronicles)
Series: Heiress to the Monado [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1819117
Comments: 4
Kudos: 46





	On Prison Island

There was such life in those eyes, at one point – fixation upon the ideals that Shulk cared about, full to the brim with passion and vigor even when he had pushed himself to the absolute limit. Passion for his friends, passion for the Colony in which he lived and the world that it was built upon. Passion for the weapon that Fiora had just put everything she had into trying to kill him with.

Now there was merely emptiness. He stared down at her with a placid expression, skin pale and marred by bolts that grafted chunks of metal to his face. Mechon technology, the same that he had spent so many hours in the laboratory preening over and oulling apart, and the very same that had killed him.

But they hadn't killed him, had they...? Shulk was right here, alive in some twisted, clinical sense, staring down at her. Fiora stood with jaw agape and weak limbs trembling as Shulk spoke in a voice that wasn't his own, as all of their friends cried out around her. All of their words fell upon deaf ears, as she was too stricken with the sight of Shulk's face to process any of it. Should she have felt joy, relief, comfort...? Or should she have gotten _angry?_

One voice within told her to grieve. The other told her to _kill._ Fiora squeezed the handle of the Monado tightly, savoring the only comfort and strength she'd had for the past month of strife.

Face Nemesis began to hover, creaking and sparking from the damage its enemy had incurred upon it, and only then the questions began to arise: _what if she had pushed herself a little harder and killed him? Why didn't she stop this from happening, or forsee it in a vision? Who was responsible and when would she finally be able to kill them?_

Reyn took off running first, desperate for a reunion with his best friend. Dunban came after, and before Fiora realized what was happening her legs were moving, too. They all called out to him as friends, and he received them as strangers.

Keep running. Don't stop, never stop. The rain pelting her face and soaking her clothing, the pain in her throat and shortness of her breath, the electric buzz of the Monado shooting up the nerves of her left hand. She waited for a vision to come, for the guidance, but it never came. Fiora's habit of hope and denial in the face of strife had failed her here: she had never, ever considered that Shulk might be alive, and was utterly unpreprared for it.

What did they do now...? What _could_ they do? Was there any point in pressing onward, knowing that the Mechon would simply take them and make them one of their own...?

"Wait...!" Time would not wait, and neither would Shulk, but Fiora would never stop chasing him. "It's me, Fiora...!"

She bounded down the steps as he took off into the setting sun, vision obscured by the drops on her face. Rain, or tears...? She didn't know. Fiora didn't know much of anything, these days.

_"Shulk...!"_


End file.
